


Sunset

by prompt_fills



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Creepy, Friendship, Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5124596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prompt_fills/pseuds/prompt_fills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been raining in the afternoon and the street is a danger zone of loose tiles and wet puddles. Sergio avoids stepping on any of them, running along a kerb with a practised ease. He throws a brief look over his shoulder but he need not be so cautious, no one is following him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> This story is slightly creepy if you read too much into it. If you _want_ to read too much into it, there are notes to guide you along at the end of the fic.

It has been raining in the afternoon and the street is a danger zone of loose tiles and wet puddles. Sergio avoids stepping on any of them, running along a kerb with a practised ease. He throws a brief look over his shoulder but he need not be so cautious, no one is following him.  
  
It would be very unusual to run into anybody in this part of the city. Here in the outskirts, not far from a residential area, stands a maze of abandoned and only half-constructed buildings. This sad memorial to a new university campus that was never finalized is now left to slowly fall into ruins. No one has any reason to wander this particular place. Sergio was instructed by his parents to avoid the crumbling structures but he paid the warning a little mind. With the lure of the adventure being too great to ignore, Sergio has watched many sunsets from the tallest standing tower of the would-be library.  
  
Today, he wants to see another sunset.  
  
Sergio reaches the point where the street ends and he picks up his speed, running across the parking lot. The asphalted parking lot is one of the few things that were completed before the project fell through. The sound of Sergio’s thumping strides comes back in a dull echo.  
  
He does not want to be late and he already lost precious time when he was sneaking out of the house and run into his sister and her friends.  
  
The parking lot is fenced with a low brick wall which Sergio has no problems jumping over. He places one hand onto the dank bricks and uses his momentum to sweep his legs over the top of the wall. He neatly lands on a path that goes around the whole campus. Past the dormitories, past the offices, past a gaping hole of a swimming pool, around the foundations of a sport hall—Sergio does not stop until he reaches the laboratories.  
  
The front entrance is sealed shut but the windows on the ground floor from the south side of the building are nothing more than holes in a wall. Sergio quickly counts the seventeenth window from the right, finds a grip and pulls himself up. He stays crouched in the window hole for a moment, peering into the dark shadows inside, suddenly hesitant. The waning daylight spilling inside is barely enough to reveal what is hiding below the window.  
  
“Hello?” Sergio calls into the darkness. He gets no answer, not even an echo of his words.  
  
Sergio takes a moment to consider, then jumps down. This time his landing is not so graceful and he stumbles a little before finding his footing. His eyes can hardly see a thing. “Hello?” Sergio calls again.  
  
He carefully ventures forward, one hand stretched in front of him, the other reaching to the side. When his fingers brush against the doorway, he only takes three more small steps and then stops. He knows he is near a staircase. The stairs are built but there are no railings and during the day, he could see down the two floors below him.  
  
“Hello? I’m here! I’m sorry I’m late!” Sergio shouts. His voice sounds strange as it resonates through the empty endless hallways. A little like a song, a little like a Sunday’s psalm.  
  
“Took you long enough.”  
  
Sergio swivels around. He senses more than sees the other boy leaning against the wall. “I said I’m sorry,” he grumbles, just as startled by his friend’s sudden appearance as he was the very first time they met.  
  
“All right, I won’t mention it again. But make sure you don’t leave me waiting next time.”  
  
Sergio pulls a face at his friend, almost certain he will not be seen in the darkness. “We could agree to meet somewhere else, you know. Somewhere that’s not so hard to sneak out to.”  
  
“Ah, are you afraid of a little danger?”  
  
Sergio cannot stand such unjust accusation. “Take it back, Fernando,” he challenges, attempting to tackle his friend. He must miscalculate the distance because he only slams into the wall.  
  
Little to his left, Fernando chuckles. “C’mon, I know you love it here.”  
  
“Right,” Sergio mutters, shuddering against the sudden chill that runs through him. He massages the palms of his hands where he scraped them against the rough surface of the concrete wall.  
  
“I want to show you something, let’s get going before it gets dark,” Fernando says, taking a step into the darkness and Sergio can see him no more.  
  
“Wait up, I can’t see a thing!” He complains.  
  
Fernando’s steps come to a halt. “You didn’t remember to take your flashlight?”  
  
Sergio feels his cheeks flame up—he carried the flashlight with him but had completely forgotten about it. “I did,” he tells his younger friend, fishing the small light out of his pocket. “Why don’t you ever bring yours?”  
  
“Do I need to see where I’m stepping?”  
  
“You do,” Sergio says without much conviction in his voice. Fernando has proved countless of times he knows the laboratories inside out, each stone, each brick. Sergio would never admit it aloud but the throughout knowledge is something he admires deeply.  
  
“This way,” Fernando commands, ignoring Sergio’s previous feeble statement.  
  
Sergio flicks on the flashlight. When he points the narrow cone of light down, he can glimpse the two basement floors, when he points above, the light shows three more levels above them. The building might be empty but it is far from silent. From the wailing of the wind to the strange scratching sound in the basement Fernando insists comes from the rats, the whole complex seems to be alive with noises.  
  
Fernando is already climbing up the stairs. “The auditorium was meant to be on the second floor,” he explains. “Hurry up.”  
  
Sergio follows.  
  
Fernando leads them up to the second floor where they turn right and walk the length of a corridor leading to a huge auditorium. The air is less humid here than it was downstairs and it tastes fresher, which is strange since there are windows everywhere on this floor and the air cannot circulate like it can on the ground level.  
  
Sergio pushes open the door leading to the auditorium. There is no doorknob and the door gives in easily. The room is warm and dry. Shallow light is coming inside through a huge window on the opposite side of the room. Thirty neat empty rows of chairs are forever waiting for students to come to their first lecture.  
  
Crossing the room, Sergio peers out of the window. It offers a west view and the sun is just starting to set. The younger boy joins him and together they watch the captivating scene.  
  
It starts raining outside and the sharp bursts of wind are strong enough to bend the tree tops they see across the field in front of them. The light of the fading sun reflects on the raindrops that splatter against the enormous paned window. Sergio grins, slowly and lazily. This place, this is _it_.  
  
“Beautiful, right?” Fernando says, voice hushed. The beauty of the scenery is stunning.  
  
“Better than from the library,” Sergio replies, equally quiet. They watch the sun disappear altogether, both of them silent. The sunset is over fast, reminding Sergio of the upcoming spring. The bleak winter will be soon over. He sighs and turns away from the window.  
  
Fernando is already facing away from the window, his hands shoved into his pockets, rocking from his heels to his tip toes. When he notices Sergio’s staring, he straightens and gestures being them with his hand. “I said you’d love it,” he says with a smugness that does not suit him.  
  
“And I did. But now it’s officially late so I’d better be–”  
  
“Officially going,” Fernando supplies, having heard the sentence from Sergio several times before.  
  
Sergio grabs his flashlight again. Now that the sun is gone, the hall is plunged into the same unsettling darkness that surrounds the rest of the building. “Right.”  
  
“I’ll see you downstairs,” Fernando offers.  
  
“You’re staying here longer again?”  
  
“Don’t I always?” Fernando says but the usual mirth is missing from his tone tonight.  
  
Sergio finds the staircase and starts walking.  
  
They are having a pointless argument about whether or not Sergio could be quiet enough to sneak back home without anyone noticing, which is the only explanation Sergio has for accidentally descending one more set of stairs than needed.  
  
Instead of the seventeenth window he uses as an entrance, his flashlight finds stocks of building material scattered alongside the basement hallways. “Creepy,” he breaths out in appreciation, his flashlight dancing left and right. He walks down the hall, taking everything in.  
  
Fernando stands still on the stairs, refusing to follow. He does not echo Sergio’s excitement.  
  
“Wow, look at this,” Sergio whistles, oblivious to Fernando’s sudden distress.  
  
The soft yellowish light falls on a strange patch of wetness on the wall near the end of the hall. Sergio frowns and takes a step forward. Upon a closer inspection, Sergio finds out the wall is covered with uneven tufts of some kind of fungi. Soft-looking, grey stems with green to pale blue dots on the ends. Sergio moves to touch it but Fernando’s cry stops him dead in his tracks. “Don’t touch it!”  
  
Sergio turns the light to the staircase where the other boy has rooted to the floor. “Why not?”  
  
“You might be… allergic,” Fernando manages.  
  
Sergio takes a step back, nearly stumbling over some forgotten hand tools that were left in the middle of the corridor. He is not sure but he thinks the fungi might reproduce through air and all of the sudden, the air tastes sickeningly sweet. He abandons the strange looking patch on the wall and walks back to his friend who hasn’t moved an inch from his place on the staircase.  
  
His companion is hauntingly quiet but it takes a while for Sergio to catch up on it. “What?”  
  
Fernando does not say anything right away but after a moment he gulps and stutters, “Rats.”  
  
Sergio rolls his eyes. “All right you worrywart. It’s late anyway. Lead the way up and no more detours.”  
  
Fernando climbs up so quickly it almost seems like he is not even touching the stairs. Sergio would make fun of him but something about the ambience of the deserted hallways that never came to be of any use makes his throat tighten. There is something heavy looming in the corridors.  
  
Sergio hurries after the younger boy and they reach the seventeenth window without any problems.  
  
Sergio places the flashlight in the window, then turns to Fernando. “Will you be here on Wednesday?”  
  
Sergio pulls himself up into the hole for the window. The light is blinding him so he cannot se Fernando’s expression but it sounds like the other boy is suppressing a laugh. “I will be here on Wednesday. Is it fine around five?”  
  
“Sounds good,” Sergio nods and switches off the flashlight. He turns in the narrow space so he is facing the now completely dark room. “We could go check out the dorms. I peeked in last weekend and the ceiling in entrance hall has given up completely.”  
  
“We’ll see,” comes Fernando’s voice from the darkness and Sergio knows even now that he will not be able to talk his friend into exploring the dormitories. Fernando always prefers to wander around the laboratories. By now, there is hardly and nook or cranny Fernando has not found. Sergio does not understand why Fernando is so obsessed with this one building out of the whole campus but he does not mind. For him, there are enough interesting corners to discover still. There is that strange moist wall with the fungi on the first sub terrain level, for instance. He would have to remember to sneak out a kitchen knife next time.  
  
“Okay, then. Bye,” Sergio backs away until he can stick his legs outside and only hang by his hands.  
  
He waits for Fernando’s echoing “Bye!” and then he lets go.  
  
In no time, he is running again. It is still raining and he is going to be soaked by the time he gets back home but today has been a good day and a little bit of rain can hardly dampen his spirit.

**Author's Note:**

> Reading between the lines:  
> Fernando is not younger than Sergio.  
> Fernando is only to be found in the laboratories.  
> Fernando appears suddenly and out of nowhere.  
> Fernando cannot be touched.  
> S: “You’re staying here longer again?”  
> F: “Don’t I always?”  
> S: “Will you be here on Wednesday?”  
> F: “I will be here on Wednesday. Is it fine around five?”  
> Fernando's body is buried in the basement, heavily lined with lime, causing the mould on the wall.


End file.
